in 1886, the dodge family moved to detroit, where john and horace took jobs at a boiler maker plant. in 1894 they went to work as machinists at the dominion typograph company in windsor, ontario, canada. while john was the sales-minded managerial type, his brother horace was a gifted mechanic and inveterate tinkerer. using a dirt-proof ball bearing horace invented and patented, in 1897 dodge arranged a deal for the brothers to join with a third-party investor to manufacture bicycles. within a few years, they sold the bicycle business and in 1900 used the proceeds of the sale to set up their own machine shop in detroit.